Berlin
A young German woman has been released from prison in Venezuela after more than two and a half years following intensive diplomatic efforts. As the 30-year-old’s spokeswoman confirmed to the German news agency, she landed in Munich and was picked up from the airport by her parents.
She is doing “well under the circumstances”. Foreign office The woman was said to have been cared for by the German embassy in Caracas before her release. The news magazine “Der Spiegel” previously reported on the release.
The woman from Bad Urach in Baden-Württemberg was sentenced to twelve years in prison in Venezuela for allegedly smuggling half a kilo of marijuana. The woman had always denied the accusation and local authorities had rejected an appeal against the verdict. Instead, the young German had to be imprisoned. As Spiegel further writes, visits by German diplomats were initially impossible there for security reasons.
Baerbock’s ministry has tried to secure his release
The ministry of Annalena Baerbock (Greens) had agreed to this “Spiegel” report According to him, he has been working hard for the past two and a half years to get the woman released. Sources familiar with the negotiations said that the “perspective of a humanitarian solution” emerged as a result of a telephone conversation. Foreign Minister Baerbock spoke to her Venezuelan counterpart Yván Gil Pinto on the phone in mid-June of this year and advocated for this.
“I am happy and relieved that our efforts and our determination to release the young woman have been successful,” wrote the lawyer for the 30-year-old Nikolaos Gazeas. Without dedicated diplomatic efforts, such releases would not be possible, and without the efforts of the Foreign Ministry, the young woman would not be in Germany today, Gazeas wrote in a statement.
Venezuela has been under authoritarian rule by President Nicolás Maduro since 2013. The 61-year-old is known for his crackdown on political opponents. In recent years, people from Western countries have repeatedly been arbitrarily arrested in Venezuela.
According to information from Spiegel, the now-released woman was initially supposed to serve her sentence in a prison for drug smugglers in the Venezuelan-Colombian border area. More than a year later, she was finally moved to Los Teques, near the capital Caracas.
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